


Getaway Car

by TheUsualSuspect



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Bad boy Barry, Bad girl Iris, Barry without powers, Criminal AU, F/M, I'm sorry I had to make Joe West a bad guy, M rating for second chapter only, Non canon compliant, Smut, just fairly detailed smut, little bit OOC but it stems from the fact that its an AU, low-key leonard snart admiration, no bdsm, nothing kinky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:55:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28830009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUsualSuspect/pseuds/TheUsualSuspect
Summary: A Barry Allen that grew up never knowing the Wests', wants the evidence that the corrupt CCPD used to put his innocent Dad away many years ago. Iris West wants to expose all the cover-ups and bribes that have crossed her Police Captain father's desk that he's signed off on. Neither of them expects to run into someone else as they're breaking into the Precinct or to have to rely on them to get out of it.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Iris West
Comments: 18
Kudos: 39





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a long time coming and I've finally finished and am so ready to share this with anyone who wants to read it. I tried so hard to write Barry as like a proper criminal Leonard Snart style and I just couldn't do it, he's such a cinnamon scroll and a warm heart I could only bring myself to damage him so much. Originally inspired by a scene I pictured while listening to Getaway Car by Taylor Swift.

The brisk night breeze filtered into the car through the crack of the rolled-down window. It caressed the side of Barry’s face, skipped across his nose and slipped back into darkness. Rain droplets sat, unmoved, on the outside of the window panes, leftover from the earlier storm, blurring his side-view mirrors. Other traces lay smeared across the road dragging the street lights further and further down the road as though it were a runway lighting his way home, a sign from the Universe telling him where he should go, telling him to turn the key in the ignition and drive away from this whole plan. 

Yet, he’d spent the better half of the last year working his way up to this point, and he was not driving away from it without a good reason, or what he came here for. 

Besides, he’d never listened to the Universe anyhow. Between his mother’s murder, his father’s imprisonment for it and resulting bounce from foster home to foster home, who could blame him? He was all too in tune with reality that he couldn’t grasp a world outside of it. So, by the time his peers started talking about fate and believing about some Divine plan, he could not think they were more naive. What sort of Divine plan ripped the parents away from an eleven-year-old child? The Universe, he’d decided back then, was kind of a dick; it never seemed to have his best interests at heart. He wasn’t about to start giving it the benefit of the doubt now; not with answers on the line. 

He glanced away from the road to check his watch- _three minutes_. He gripped the bevel with his thumb and forefinger, feeling the steady thrumb of the second hand, tick its way around the face. He closed his eyes and breathed using the watch’s ticking as a metronome, regulating his breathing and clearing his head. He couldn’t feel the wind picking up outside, didn’t hear a late night cyclist rush past the car, couldn’t smell the lingering scent of fresh blooming jasmine, but he could see all the plans in his head. That was all he needed to focus on right now. 

His entire idea had started to conceptualise in his mind when he was slumped over cold coffee, reading the most recent expose in the newspaper from the coffee table of his apartment, when he turned to an article about the notorious thief Leonard Snart. He’d stolen the Orlov diamond in transit to its home in the Kremlin. The police aren’t even sure he did it, let alone how he did it, but it’s precisely the latter reason that they were fairly certain Snart was behind it. That had sparked a curiosity in Barry, never quite leaving his mind and ending in many Google searches into Snart, delving into all of his confirmed and alleged heists and the many, many times he’d evaded the CCPD. It would definitely be a case breaker if he could actually get his hands on the Nora Allen files. Since he knew they were too old to be digitised (he’d bribed a particularly rebellious Computer Sciences major into accessing the files online before his search became a vendetta) he may as well just go in and take them. 

That was much easier said than done. And so began a solid nine months of prep. Forging government badges to worm his way into visitation with Snart when he eventually (some would say- inevitably) was apprehended by police. If he was going to break into a police station he needed to learn some tricks of the trade from a master and who was more qualified than Snart? Pulling plans from city archives, getting Felicity (the Computer Sciences major) back to help him so that he could get an idea of the security layout. He could feel the surmounting pressure and pushed it down once again, he had this planned to a tee, he had back up plans on top of back up plans. After nine months of planning and dealing with a security update three months ago that threw a massive spanner in his plans, his plan was airtight and going into action tonight.

He opened his eyes and flicked his eyes down to where his hand held the side of his watch; it was time. He popped the handle up and, opening his door, stepped out of the car and swung a compact backpack over his shoulders. He locked his car and slipped his over-ear Bluetooth piece in, clicking the outside to dial the only number stored on the connected burner phone. As it rang, he shuffled his way down the street and turned the corner before the line patched through.

He was greeted on the other end of the line with the noise of metal scraping against cardboard.  
“Felicity?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.  
“Sorry, I’m here.” There was some shuffling on her end, “I was just eating my way through a pint of mint chip.” He rolled his eyes, “don’t worry I’m here and ready to work, I’m in the CCPD security system- which I still can’t believe isn’t air-gapped- and I’m placing a robbery in-progress alert at Central City Reserve Bank.” 

Barry arrived at the back of the building looking at the five-storey climb he had before him. He pulled the wrists of his gloves up and, checking the street was clear, took the silicone-based polymer solution out of his back pocket and slipped them onto his gloves. The sticky surface bonded easily with the fabric on the palms of the gloves. The polymer was one of his own design, one that he’d concocted with the assistance of his Chemistry degree, his only talent that’d been nurtured by the Science teacher in his Sophomore and Junior years, before he moved houses and transferred out in his Senior year.   
“Tell me when Felicity.” He stepped closer to the wall, with the night quiet it was easy to hear the cacophony of half the police force exiting the precinct at the front of the building, a brigade of heavy-footed boots on the ground and a clatter of car doors closing echoed through the night. The wind had picked up and he could feel the tips of his fringe sticking out underneath his beanie flapping against his forehead. 

“I’ve placed a message in the system citing gunshots at the bank.”

Felicity was watching officers leave the building, keeping an eye on as much as she could on the double monitors she had set up on her coffee table.  
“Everything looks good.” Her eyes flicked between the feeds on her monitors, checking one final time, “Go now.”  
Barry braced himself, taking a deep breath and readjusting his beanie, securing it on his head. He reached his right hand up to the wall and tested the stick. Of course, he had tested it many times throughout its initial research and development stage and had fallen, many, _many_ times until he finally came to this stick. So he trusted it but still didn’t want to fall when he was three stories up. It defied logic, yet pervaded the forefront of his mind, a distraction most unnecessary.   
“I know you probably need a minute because you don’t want to fall to your death, but it’s not going to be long before the police realise that there isn’t a robbery in progress,” Felicity prompted gently.  
Barry snapped out of his daze “I hear you Felicity.”  
With a jump, he brought his left hand up, above his right and dragged his feet up to match. Carefully, he peeled his right hand back and raised it higher, a breath falling out when he felt his left slip ever so slightly, he matched his feet, took a breath and continued upwards. He kept his eyes focused upwards at the window he was aiming for. Focusing solely on that and not irrational phobias encroaching on his mind.

Felicity was nervous for this bit, she didn’t want to hear her… friend?.. criminal accomplice? Whatever he was. Die over the phone. Really, ideally, she didn’t want to hear anybody die over the phone, or die, period. So, she held her breath and listened to Barry’s short puffs of exertion as he pulled himself up the side of the building.   
As he neared the fourth floor he strained to keep his eyes up, as all he wanted to do was look down, even though he knew it was the last thing his slight trepidation of heights would want. He didn’t want to think about how far up he was though, his arms were on fire and his toes were cramping from their position on the wall. He stopped for a minute, pulling himself to the wall to relieve the pressure in his elbows and embracing the cold brick against his face, the sharp feeling bringing his mind back into focus, centering him, his deep breaths offering more oxygen to his abused form.  
“How are you going up there?” Felicity asked her hands twisting around each other nervously hoping for the best.  
“I’m almost there,” he replied with a strained huff, decompressing himself from the wall and continuing up it.

When he finally reached the window ledge outside the Captain’s office his arms were burning. He positioned himself next to the window.   
“Am I clear?”  
She checked the feed of the office and responded with an all-clear.   
“I still can’t believe that people in a police precinct leave the windows unlocked.” Barry shifted his weight onto his right hand and his feet, taking his left to open the window and slip into the office.  
“Well, I don’t think they expect someone to break-in by scaling the outside using a one of a kind specially formulated spiderman level sticky polymer.”  
“Ow,” he let out quietly as he missed his landing and didn’t land in a squat as he’d expected, but on his back instead.  
“You alright?”  
“Yep,” he whispered, removing the silicone-gel from his gloves, and moving up to close the window carefully. His arms were lead, falling stagnant and sore at his sides.

Really, he thought, that was the difficult part, so it was all up from here. 

He kept low, avoiding the possible gaze of anyone who might see him through the slated curtains either side of the door. He poked his head up just enough to snoop around the papers left on the desk for Captain… he edged the plaque on the far front of the desk around enough to read, ‘Captain Joe West’, on Captain Joe West’s desk. Nothing of particular notoriety, merely, what looked like ordinary paperwork. Boring. 

Once he’d creeped out of the office, on Felicity’s command, keeping low to the ground, and moved across the tiled, precinct floor. Watching the heads of desk sergeants typing away on keyboards, eyelines' flicking between screen and papers. He set a reminder to laugh about this later. The unsanctioned, intimate look at Central City’s finest and they had no idea. He was squattin behind a filing cabinet, waiting for Felicity to tell him when the cameras moved. On her mark he stood and quickly shuffled over to the alcove holding the door that led to storage, his clock began. To get in, he had to keep his back turned to the alcove entrance, if anyone saw him; he was a goner. Felicity could tell him if someone was coming, but there wasn’t far he could go to hide.  
He pulled out a re-programed card (courtesy of Felicity) of the front of his bag, along with what Felicity called a Skeleton Key. She claimed to have “borrowed” it from a mechanical engineer she knew. 

He could feel sweat from the climb crawling through his hair, and the heat trapped underneath his beanie made his head itch. Subconsciously, he reached to scratch it as he stuck the magnet of the Skeleton Key on the bottom of the keypad, before swiping the card through the scanner. The light under the keys turned green and an unconscious sigh of relief left his lips. Pulling the magnet off the key-pad, he slipped through the door and took a minute to lower his steadily rising pulse, closing his eyes and resting against the door. Taking a glove off, he took his watch between his bare thumb and forefinger once again, feeling the rhythm, channelling it through his body feeling the steady tick tick tick consume him. 

He opened his eyes when he heard a voice call his name.  
“Barry?” Felicity’s voice came over his earpiece in a singsong tone, “what’s your status?”  
He pushed himself off the door and dropped down the stairs, “I’m in the file room.” 

As his eyes adjusted to the dark he could make out the shapes of high stacked aisles. Swinging his backpack in front of him, he unzipped it and removed a torch. Flicking it on, a spotlighted world came to life. Rows upon dusty rows of boxes sat neatly stacked. Creeping along the first aisle he scanned the faded pen-scratches on the labels _1983, 1987, 2001_. Looks, in this case, were deceiving. Just because the boxes looked to be orderly didn’t mean they were. He worried about the further disarray he’d find inside the boxes. The thought itself made his fingers burn. He clenched his hands into fists to make it stop as he began scanning the third aisle.   
Having scoured Leonard Snart for whatever information on heisting he could, he really should’ve kept _all_ of it in mind.

_Make the plan  
Execute the plan  
Expect the plan to go off the rails  
Throw away the plan_

He’d put emphasis on the first point, spent time properly making everything orderly, getting his hands onto everything he needed. Building plans, special chemicals, the skeleton key (okay so Felicity got that one but still…), fake ids… He’d spent so long on point one, he’d only just made it to point two and hadn’t really had time to remember, or consider, parts three or four. 

Of course, he should’ve listened to Snart. He too thought he could plan for every contingency and all that had ended with him in a cosy cell at Iron Heights. In hindsight, Barry knew it wasn’t Snart’s ideal play to expect everything to go off the rails, but he knew how it could happen.

Quickly.   
Quickly was how it could happen.

He didn’t even have time to turn around when he heard metal scraping against a concrete floor, he panicked and crouched to the floor behind a row of boxes, clicking his torch off.   
“Shit,” he murmured.  
He hadn’t registered what it was, but creeping between dusty boxes from his place on the floor, he could see a grey filing cabinet against the wall wobbling from side to side as if someone was standing behind and slowly moving it to the side.   
“What’s going on Barry?”  
How in the hell someone was moving it from behind, Barry had no idea, because the cabinet was flush against the wall. He ducked even lower to the ground as the cabinet groaned in submission, scraping to the side.   
“Someone else is here,” he barely spoke.  
“How is that possible. No one else has even come near the door.”  
“They didn’t use the door.” 

_Expect the plan to go off the rails_

The figure that emerged from behind the cabinet, squeezing through a gap that should not have been there, was silhouetted in the unlit room.   
“That’s because they made their own.”  
As they turned around, a circle of hair unfurled around their face, falling to rest below their shoulders. They clicked on a torch that Barry hadn’t realised they’d been holding. A halo of light illuminated her face and the treacle curls that shaped it. Considering her entrance method, she wasn’t police and Snart’s advice was looking more and more relevant. The spotlight from her torch swung around the room until it came to settle on his face because apparently at some point he’d moved his head up just a little bit too far. Instinctively, he fell back into his crouch stance, as if it would mean he could stop her from already having seen him.  
“Don’t let me interrupt you,” she said, “as long as you’re not going to set this place on fire.”   
She walked down a few aisles and started scanning the boxes of the one in front of him. When he didn’t reply, she set her torchlight back on his still crouched form. He brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the bright spotlight and stood up slowly. He could see her raised eyebrows demanding an answer or response of some sort.  
“I’m not setting anything on fire.”   
“I can hear … Barry? Are yo- ... trouble?” the connection was crackling. Which is what happens when you go cheap on the burner phone that’s barely new enough to have Bluetooth on it.  
He kept his eyes on the woman, who’d stalked down to the opposite aisle’s shelving “I’m fine, but you’re breaking up,” he kept his tone low and continued his search.  
She swung the light across the boxes.  
“Pity,” her tone was laced with a tint of amused bitterness, “that’d really piss my Dad off.” 

Felicity continued to talk in his ear, only bits and pieces of her monologue cutting through.  
“I can’t- … someone else?” the line went quiet as she paused and he could tell it was to pull another spoonful of ice cream, “I’m gonna … fix this … kills me…”   
He risked a quiet chuckle at the intermittent dramatics of his colleague in crime as he turned back to this mystery woman’s conversation. 

“Your Dad?”   
“He’s in charge of all this,” she gestured to the room.   
He needed to only hear the tone in her voice to understand that the relationship she had with her father was strained. He thought it was a good thing that her father and she had a relationship that consisted of more than perspex and telephone conversations. Which made his realisation more of a delayed afterthought.   
“Your Dad’s the captain?” His torch slipped through his hand and clattered to the ground. He followed almost immediately to retrieve it.   
“Yes.”  
“Your Dad’s Captain Joe West?” he looked at her, surprise completely robbing the neutral expression from his face.  
“According to the city,” she grumbled.  
He pulled open mental drawers of information he’d collected trying to find why this realisation jumped out at him slightly, other than the fact that a police captain’s daughter had just broken into the police station. There was something in there screaming so desperately, to be let out, to be acknowledged.  
“Iris,” he said finally.   
Her eyes flicked up to him, unsheathing daggers of surprise.  
“Iris West?”  
“I see someone did their research.”  
“I needed viable blackmail material.”  
Felicity’s voice reappearing in his ear startled him, “Are you flirting with her?”  
The smile she gave him was twisted, “I’d check my definition of ‘viable’ on that one.”  
He turned back to the shelves in front of him, “I take it you two don’t get along.”  
She let out a curt laugh before replying, “I live to give him hell.”   
“Is that why you’re here?” he asked, interrupting before she could answer, “actually I care more about how you got in here?” he tried to keep his tone neutral, void of how curious he was.  
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Mr…” she prompted.  
“Allen.”  
“Mr Allen,” she finished.  
Felicity piped up again, “Well, if I were a betting girl, which I am because I’m very good at probability, I would say she’s definitely flirting with you.”   
He should’ve ended the call long ago. Her running commentary of his and Iris’ interactions was distracting. He didn’t know why he hadn’t (well he did, but he didn’t want to admit to the whole needing moral support thing).  
“Yeah, I would.” He got his head back on track and pointed over to the wall she came through, “that is solid concrete.”  
She stepped around the row of files between them and appeared at the end of his aisle.  
“ _That_ ,” she pointed at the hole in the wall, “is still no match for some drilled holes and a sledgehammer.”  
He creased his eyebrows together, “It’s definitely not the cleanest way you could have done it, not discrete.”   
She laughed, “yeah.” It was easy and confident, without a trace of concern.  
“You’re not worried about getting caught.”  
“No.” She started looking down the stacks in this aisle, “the great Joe West will definitely know I was here.”

Her answer puzzled him and left him eyebrows creased, frozen in place, listening to a resuming static in his earpiece. She may be the only thief alive ballsier than Snart. She knew that she would get caught, she’d planned for it so much that it had become the only objective in her plans. 

He turned in his crouch, moving his torchlight over her, taking her in, the crimson of her lipstick starkly contrasting her skin, her gloved fingers had resumed rummaging through a box of files.  
“See something you like?” her eyes didn’t even move from the box.  
He couldn’t bring himself to dignify that comment with a response. Or, more accurately, couldn’t articulate a response of more than a shaking head and a dismissive noise, as his silent reply crept up his neck. 

As he turned away from her and back to his search, he found the box he was looking for. He lifted the boxes above it up, gently kicking it off the bottom shelf and then lowering the rest of the stack down leaving him in an awkward-looking deep squat. He heard a short chuckle that was definitely accompanied by a smirk and tried to think nothing of it, or how tight his jeans felt in this position right now. Under other circumstances, he’d have half a mind to think she was checking him out. Under the current circumstances, he hoped that she was. 

As he flicked through the box, the significance of the moment overcame him. He let out a shuddering breath, once he’d had his way with the evidence in here, his Dad would be free and his mother’s murder avenged. He could see the file in his hands, the Nora Allen file, articles of bagged evidence around it. He didn’t dare open the file now, he still needed to keep his cool to get out of here, and bringing back the vivid images of that night was enough without the pictures he knew would be in there. He’d get to them in his own time, another time. He put the lid back on it and breathed a deep sigh of relief. 

“Barry,” her voice was a panic, “you need to stop flirting with Little Miss Captain’s Daughter and get yourself out of there.”  
He rolled his eyes, “I wasn’t,” his gaze flicked back to Iris as he continued in a lower voice, “flirting.” He took his backpack off and slid the files into the flat compartment. “Why?”   
And then all hell broke loose as an alarm started blaring throughout the precinct.  
“Someone triggered an alarm,” Felicity continued to him.  
He groaned, “Yeah, I can hear it.”  
“Well, you’re going to need another way out. I suggest-” the line cut off.  
“Felicity?” he tapped the earpiece.  
“Protocol is to jam all signals except their hand radios,” Iris called, oddly calm, “come on.” _or maybe this wasn’t odd for her. If her whole shtick was to send a message to her Dad, she’d probably slipped away seconds before catastrophe many times previously_.  
He glanced at her, somehow frozen even with a thousand backup plans as if she had better answers, her composure was calm but her eyes lit up like the opening number of a concert. All flashing lights and fireworks, insane drum intros and the inescapable feeling of being alive, being in the heart of life itself.

In his trance, he hadn’t quite noticed her moving, although his eyes had definitely followed her across the room.   
“Are you coming?”

He slipped his earpiece into his pocket.

_Throw away the plan_

There was now a definite noise coming from the other side of the door and he was not sticking around to meet the police who were seconds away from coming through it.  
He followed Iris through the hole, having to duck his taller frame significantly to fit through the Iris-size opening. He helped her move the cabinet back into place from behind, hopefully concealing their exit. On the other side, the alarm was louder, aiding them by muting their footsteps as they charged through the halls of CCPD, a full storey below where he needed to be to get out. Iris navigated her way through it like she knew what she was doing and he wondered, not for the first time that evening, if she’d broken in (or out) of here before. He supposed there’d have to be perks to being the Captain’s daughter, regardless of how much disdain she carried for him. 

As much of a blessing as the sirens were for over-powering their footsteps, it also meant they had no warning before they ran into a duo of patrolmen around a corner. He wasn’t meant to actually come into contact with anyone, and he’d forgotten to take the ‘just in case’ taser out of his bag in the hurry to get out of the building. Luckily, Iris, with a control that told him ‘yes, she’s definitely done this before’, slugged one with a deft right hook and sent a powerful kick straight into the other’s chest. Sending them both off-balance and stumbling to the floor. Iris chanced a glance back at Barry who tried to keep his expression of admiration in control (but was failing more than he’d like to admit). His eyes looked a little bit starry.  
“Only benefit of being raised by a cop,” she explained. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment, as though it was the first time she could take him all in. And it probably was, they’d only had the circles of light from their torches in the storeroom and it was the first time that she’d seen him properly in the light, actually seen the brunette fringe peeking out from under his beanie, the dusting of freckles across his nose, a piercing green in his eyes and the lanky frame that pulled it all together.  
“See something you like?” he asked, cocking his head to the side, a coy smile on his face, “because I definitely do.”  
She couldn’t stop the small quirk of her lips that pooled onto her face. 

Then one of the guards groaned and suddenly the alarm came back into focus and they took off again. They reached the door of a side exit and slipped straight outside with a leisurely strolling pace for one o’clock in the morning.  
“My car’s just around the corner,” Barry offered.  
“We’d have to walk past the front to get there, and I can guarantee that it’ll be covered in cops.”  
Sure enough, as they casually crossed the street he was parked on, police were stationed at the front door, and of course one of them noticed the two people dressed in black walking calmly near the precinct.   
“Hey! You two!” One of the patrols out the front yelled, “Stop right there!” 

There wasn’t a moment of hesitation as they both took off running.  
“Do you have a plan B?” Barry asked in between pulling breaths.  
“I’m still on plan A, but sure, _you_ can call it plan B.”  
Iris was smiling, the adrenaline of a chase starting to fill her up with freedom and freeing her from vengeance. As always, she knew that it was temporary and tomorrow, tonight would feel like it was a video of herself from her childhood. She’ll know she was there, but will retain no memory of it, what it felt like, what it smelt like; only that it was immortalised on tape for as long as it took the tape to decompose. 

They ignored the shouts of the policemen behind them as Iris pulled keys out of her pocket and clicked the unlock fob. The headlights on a convertible across the street lit up as the car unlocked. Later, of course, it would occur to Barry that she probably stole the car, or bought it with stolen money, or money that she got from selling something she stole, either way, not a car one could say she ‘owned’. They slid onto the leather upholstery and Barry didn’t even have time to fuss over whether to put on his seatbelt or not, it was just go go go.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The content in this chapter was the whole reason I had to split this into two parts instead of just tying it up in a one-shot. Also, on that note, plenty of smut coming your way in this chapter of which I'm really proud of how it turned out. If you like it please leave a comment because they really make my day and remind me why I write.  
> Thanks and much love,  
> TheUsualSuspect xx

When they’d gotten into the car, the two policemen chasing them had stopped and radioed back to get some road support. So even as Iris started racing down the street, under the runway of road lights, they weren’t too far gone when a trio of sirens appeared racing after them. After the first corner where she barely braked and he feared he was going to fly out of the car, he wrenched the seatbelt out from behind him and slipped it over himself as quick as his hands could muster. 

Iris knew her way around these backstreets and as much as he swore she hadn’t touched the brake since they got into the car, neither of them were dead yet. Unfortunately, the cars in tow had succeeded in keeping up with her pace thus far, matching each impromptu turn with a slightly slower, more controlled replica.  
In the end it took her vaulting the car across four lanes of traffic and the divider, shooting up the “wrong way- turn around” entry ramp off the freeway, and almost flipping the car to truly be in the clear off them.

When they finally hit the highway and couldn’t hear the sirens racing after them anymore, Barry let out an elated sigh that was stolen away in the air of the night breeze. He looked over at Iris, now that she’d slowed down to the recommended speed limit he could see her laughing. He could only see the side of her face and missed the joy and adrenaline spark in her eyes like a hit of ecstasy, but the console in front of her cast a blue illumination over her face and as the lights above passed over them her halo of hair revolved around her glimmering in the light. She was smiling as she came out of her laughter. She cast a glance at him, wanting to keep her eyes on the road ahead.  
“What’s your name?”  
“Barry.”  
Their eyes met for the briefest second, and something about her smile told him that it was more than just the getaway high causing it.  
“Barry,” she repeated, “is that short for something?”  
He let out a disgruntled sigh and replied quietly, “Bartholomew.”  
She chuckled, “that’s unfortunate.”  
“Yeah.” He pulled his gloves and beanie off and rubbed at the side of his head, “do you do this often? I mean- it just seems like you’ve done this before.”  
“Jeez, _Barry Allen_ , I’m not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not.”  
“Take it however you want.” He shrugged, “but you’ll know a compliment when you hear it.”  
She let out a small chuckle, “I guess you could say I do this often. When your Dad pisses you off, you decide to get really good at the only thing that could piss him off more and then rub it in his face.”  
The same bitter, angry tone came back from before. Although, now he could tell that it wasn’t anger, it was betrayal. Whatever empathy he had, went out to her, if he wanted to, he could still feel the same betrayal of justice about his Dad, he’d just gotten very adept at ignoring it. It spurned his vendetta. He knew exactly how it could have spurned whatever twisted war there was between her and her father.  
“What did he do to piss you off?”  
“What makes you think that I’m going to tell you?”  
“Because we just robbed and broke out of a police station together.”  
Iris tilted her head in contemplation, a hand coming up off the steering wheel to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear as a smile creeped onto her lips.  
“Since I was a kid, my Dad’s told me that my mother died giving birth to me,” her voice had lowered, less bitter, more lonely, “and then when she showed up last year, he had to come clean and tell me that when I was younger, she had gone off to rehab, again, and disappeared afterwards. If she hadn’t’ve shown up I would have gone my entire life thinking that my mother was dead,” then the coldness in her voice returned, “she died before I got to meet her. Came back because she had MS and wanted to meet her adult daughter before she died.” She trailed off keeping her eyes on the road, “I also found out that he’d been burying case files and tampering with evidence. The only way I could get back at him was by slowly stealing back all the case files he’d buried and getting it onto the internet.” 

The breath she let out told Barry that she was done talking about it, so he stopped himself from asking any follow up questions.  
“Well, everyone thinks that my dad killed my mum.”  
She turned to him, “And you don’t.” It wasn’t a question.  
He shook his head in agreement, “I was there. I saw it, but no one wanted to believe an eleven year old boy, so he’s rotting away in Iron Heights,” her eyes didn’t droop with pity like everyone else’s did, they hardened with understanding, “I wanted to get a look at the case files myself.”  
“So you thought it would be better to break into a _police station_ than send in a freedom of information request?”  
“I tried that. I tried that for years but it kept getting denied.”  
“Probably because something was fabricated, or evidence was buried, or...” she let out a sigh, “or any other number of unethical cover up’s of the Captain’s.”  
“That’s what I’m starting to think.”  
“Anyway.” Her discontent slid off her face and a mischievous smile started crawling up instead, “it’s more fun this way.”  
They shared a smile as Barry replied, “Yeah. It is.”

She kept driving for a while longer until, what he then considered to be a rather obvious question that he should’ve asked sooner, dawned on him, “where are we going?”  
“I’ve got a place out here that’s pretty off the books. My landlord lets me pay in cash and keeps my name out of rental agreements. So my Dad doesn’t know where to find me when he comes looking.” She turned the corner onto a more secluded, quieter road, although he was sure most roads were quiet at this time in the morning and continued, “And trust me, he’ll come looking. Also, they’ve probably identified you from surveillance footage anyway and the first place they’ll go looking for you is at your place.”  
“Why are you helping me?”  
“Because this is clearly your first time doing this?”  
Whatever emotion was on Barry’s face dropped off in a sudden, “What- huh?!” before falling into, “how do you know that?” he rubbed the side of his neck in embarrassment.  
“You froze when that alarm went off, instead of springing into action and thinking about the quickest way out of there. And then you wanted to walk back to your car, crossing in front of the precinct. Rookie mistake,” she looked at him for emphasis, “you were relying on whoever you had in your ear to get you out of trouble,” her tone was accusatory and had risen in pitch, as though she was amazed he needed her to explain it, “that’s why I do all this stuff by myself.”  
A grimace shadowed over Barry’s face, “so you took pity on me?”  
She scoffed as she slowed the car, “No- I…” she pursed her lips looking for a word, “Yeah I guess I did.”  
Wheels churned against gravel, then concrete as Iris pulled the car into a garage, the movement causing the motion sensor lights to flicker on as the metal door pivoted closed. The garage was shoebox small; just enough room for the car to squash in between a wall and some cabinets with the front of the car nuzzling against a staircase leading up.  
“Well, thanks for being honest then.”  
She turned the car off and turned to face him, watching as he took off his seatbelt.  
“You too,” she paused, “thanks for not pitying me, about my Mum.” He turned suddenly to look at her, the vulnerability she offered in her words without hate or anger, “or judging my vendetta.”  
“Pity and judgement don’t help.” His hand found his way on top of hers where it rested on the center console, “You should have known the truth about your mother.” She could feel the warmth spreading in her hand, the kind of person to person warmth that spread like an infection. 

“He shouldn’t’ve hidden it from you.”

An infection that started slowly at the point of contact before latching onto the rest of the body and devouring it.

She kind of wanted it to devour her. 

But then he moved his hand and got out of the car.

She got out just as Barry had walked around the car to end up at the foot of the stairs with her. She turned to him.

“I hope whatever’s in those files helps you get your Dad out.”

He nodded his head in thanks.

She went to turn around and head up the stairs but before she did, she added, “no eleven-year-old deserves to have both their parents ripped away from them and have it called justice.”

Barry didn’t acknowledge her, his body still, his mind whirring and when he came back to, Iris was at the top of the stairs, staring down expectantly at him. He met her eyes and wordlessly climbed the stairs, stopping a few steps below her, so they were eye level.

“No one else has seen it as an injustice,” his voice was soft and vulnerable, she knew it was the truth. And the emotion tumbling out of his eyes saw his heart aching and an entire sky of conflicts fall over his face, “everyone else just says that they’re ‘so sorry’ like it’s their fault. Everyone else thinks my Dad is guilty, so they just assumed that I was a confused little kid. No one saw it as a matter of justice or injustice.”

Then she felt a warmth on her cheek, that same warmth from before. A tiny breath passed through her lips as she realised he was caressing her cheek. She really didn’t want to be falling soft because of him. He saw her eyes fall soft under his gaze, “You are the first person to understand.”

Against her will an exhale, almost like a sigh, left her lips under the duress of the waves of passion and wanting lingering between the two of them. This softness that she didn’t want, but in this moment that she _craved_ edged its way into their bubble. 

They stared at each other, seconds passing without any movement.  
Tick Tick Tick

So Iris gave into the softness, she leaned further into him, to the point she could feel his hesitation. But she was waiting and Barry wasn’t moving, the part wanting the warmth to devour her pushing all soft impulses away from her  
“Just kiss me already,” she let out exasperated, all softness giving way.  
She leaned in all the way to meet his lips. She was, after all, someone who went after what she wanted. Barry met her lips, wrapping his other arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him. There was no time to think, every moment, every movement was acting out instinct. The stolen breaths between kisses and every push and pull as they stood on the top landing of the stairs. Blank minds, only thinking more, more, more. Consume, consume, consume. 

Iris pulled Barry into her orbit, pulling them back until they were pressed up against each other and Iris’ back hit her front door. The kiss was messy and all-consuming, their tongues brushing against each others. Barry’s hand winding down to rest at the bottom of Iris’ neck, his fingers tangling in the long labyrinth of curls wrangled into place with bobby pins. He was gentle with his hands, caressing the back of her neck, cautious of the care she’d put into her hair. 

His hands slowed their roaming as he registered the heat between their lips. A wet heat that demanded attention. He could feel the sticky traces of Iris’ lipstick painting his lips, transferring with each desperate push and pull of their lips. 

They pulled back, chests heaving, drawing full breaths of air into their deprived lungs. Barry took a whole half a step back from Iris to give them both some space to breathe not realising it would cause their bodies to ache with a whole new kind of deprivation. Their skin crawled with restraint and they were desperate to itch at it.

Barry’s taller frame blocked most of the light that was emitting from the single globe above them, casting a shadow over Iris, making the mischievous smile on her face seem all the more dangerous, all the more alluring.  
Iris reached behind her and grabbed the doorknob, turning it in her hand and pushing the door open.  
“Coming in?” she asked coyly, her eyebrow raised in question while they both knew the unspoken answer between them.

Barry didn’t have time to think, by the time the words registered in his head his feet were already blindly following Iris into the room. She flicked on the light to a little kitchenette living room space. If he hadn’t been drawn back to Iris’ lips like a magnet he would’ve seen that the light came from three hanging lights and that they illuminated a kitchenette made up from a bench nestled in the far corner and a white wheely trolley filled with non-perishables. As they stumbled backwards, away from the kitchen and further into the apartment, they moved past the double seated lounge and the television it faced. They would have felt the flooring change from wood to carpet as they passed over the rug. But Barry didn’t have time for observation right now, every part of him was consumed by Iris.

Iris’ walking got slower as she backed into the soft material of curtains. She briefly turned away from Barry and parted the curtains to reveal the apartment’s make-shift bedroom secluded in the back corner, cordoned off from view by curtains. As she turned back, Barry’s lips were on her in an instant, all soft, yet demanding as he moved to start kissing down the skin on her neck. He drew a small laugh out as he brushed past a ticklish spot. It was the most joyful noise he’d heard her make all night and his repeated attention to the skin there made it difficult for Iris to reach back and pull her shoes off.  
She kept laughing, “Barry!” she chastised, any forcefulness chased away by her laughter. 

He receded just enough for her to take her shoes off and toss them out of the way.  
She pulled back with a step and launched a change of pace. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes and bringing a hand up to caress his cheek, like he’d done earlier. She needed a moment to take him in like this; all flushed cheeks and red stained lips, and slightly tousled hair. He looked like a real-life surrealist piece and so very devilishly handsome, a wreckage at her hands.  
“Come here,” she said, pulling him down to her.

Their lips met again all soft and simple. Push and pull. Give and take. Hands winding through hair, gently pulling at the scalp. She let her hands fall from his hair and drag over his shoulders, to come down and rest on his chest. Barry felt her move away, pulling him with her as she started pushing him around clockwise. As the backs of his legs hit the wooden lip of the bed frame, he understood what she was asking. He steadily lowered them down, reaching one hand off of her neck to lower them somewhat gracefully. Iris followed, straddling his lap as she came down. Barry’s head spun as she settled in his lap, he was calmer when he was committing a felony than he was right now. While not in unfamiliar territory, just in very unexpected territory, he was glad he’d showered in the morning.

Tendrils of Iris’ hair brushed across Barry’s shoulders as she started kissing down his neck and he shivered. Long, open-mouthed, sucking kisses that he knew would leave purple bruises in their wake. Barry let out a tiny moan and he felt Iris smile in response as she continued to travel down to his collarbone. Her fingers slid up his chest coming together on the top button of his shirt and they slowly began to undo it. Her kisses chased after the fresh expanses of skin that appeared as she opened each of the buttons of his shirt, alternating between pressing kisses and licking stripes as she worked her way down his chest. Barry started squirming impatiently, and as Iris made her way further down his chest, she could tell why.

Iris lifted her head to look at Barry and the litany of barely formed bruises running down his chest to the waistband of his pants.  
“Well, someone’s excited,” Iris purred, slowly running her hands up and down his legs.  
Barry smirked, sitting himself up “Yeah?” His hands reached around to Iris’s back and pulled her closer to him. She squeaked in surprise and in return placed her arms around his neck. “But, you’re the one that deserves attention right now.” Barry’s hands trailed down from her back to rest on her thighs, his hands rolling circles there, every now and again inching further up. “You’re the one who made sure we didn’t spend our night in a holding cell,” he whispered against her skin.

They fell back into each other as Barry’s hands skirted around the waistband of her pants and she shuddered with a gasp as she felt his hands bare against her skin. Fire roamed each millimetre of skin his hands touched. The feeling of being consumed, devoured, by every piece of his bare skin. And she wanted more.

They shuffled around as Barry helped Iris get out of her jeans and once they were discarded on the floor Iris pushed Barry’s shirt the rest of the way off his arms and then greedily went for his belt buckle. Her movements were direct, yet distracted as Barry started on her underwear and slipped his hands underneath. She managed to undo his belt just as his finger started edging around her clitoris; his hand exploratory and searching. She moaned right into the kiss when he found it and pressed down against Barry’s pants in return, he drew back from the kiss with a strong inhale and Iris took a beat to breathe. She finally undid the zip on Barry’s pants and worked on slipping them down past his thighs along with his boxers. Barry put his hands to Iris’ waist and turned them over so that he could shed himself of his pants. Iris pulled her shirt over her head as Barry finished off with his pants. 

Iris shuffled further up the bed so that her head was resting against the pillows and Barry followed her, crawling on his hands and knees, to meet her. He kneeled at her feet and leaned down to press a kiss against Iris’ inner thigh. Iris let out a sigh, leant back and closed her eyes. Her only focus was on the shivering of her legs as Barry’s hands and lips inched slowly, slowly closer to where she wanted them. His fingers left a trail of goosebumps on her flesh, radiating from the point of touch and infecting neighbouring cells, like the spread of food dye in water. The closer he got, the more her breathing quickened, unintentional moans coming out in place of exhales as she felt Barry slide her underwear down her legs. She was impatient, yet resigned to waiting. Wanting consumption, yet wanting satisfaction to last. Her breath hitched in her throat as she felt his lips latch onto her clit and slide one finger into her.

She let out a breathy moan, her toes curling and flexing as waves of sensation washed over her body. As he continued, the sensation grew, her nerves were exposed and every touch felt like a supernova.  
“Barry,” she breathed out in a moan, “go slow.”  
He stopped and brought his head up to look at her.  
“Is everything okay?”  
“Mmm,” she replied, eyes still closed, “I just want it to last.”

He resumed moving, adding a second finger and slowly drawing in and out of her, feeling her arousal coat his fingers. He brought his mouth up to her still covered breasts and heard her gasp at the unexpected feeling of his mouth closing around a patch of bare skin just above the cup of her bra. Her back arched off the bed slightly. She needed more contact; she wriggled around trying to maneuver her arms to her back to undo her bra. Moving both hands to hers, he covered her hands and undid the back clasp himself, before sliding it off her arms with ease. Taking both breasts in his hands to gauge her body’s response to the touch before moving down to suckle around her nipple.  
She whimpered as he pulled at it with his mouth, “oh god.” She squirmed trying to find more contact.

When he finally brought his lips back to hers, they were both shaking, only giving short kisses as they were both oxygen starved.  
“Devour me,” Iris breathed. If she had been a woman who cared what people thought, or someone with considerably more dignity, or some poor housewife destined to never be able to ask for exactly what she wanted, she would have picked different words.  
Barry pulled back, “What?”  
But she wasn’t. She was unapologetically herself.  
Iris reached over and pulled a condom out of her bedside drawer.  
“I want you to.” she opened the packet, “devour,” she practically purred as she wrapped her other hand around his length, “me.” His head rolled back and he moaned, as she rolled the condom onto him.

She brought both of her hands to his face and pulled him back in for another heated kiss. He slid the first two fingers in and then an additional third just to make sure she was ready. Regardless of how eager she was or how much of a one night stand this seemed, he didn’t want to hurt her. He felt her react against him and felt her breaths pass by his ear. Her body responded by moving, clenching around him and beginning to grind up and down.  
“Come on Barry,” she encouraged breathily next to his ear, “I’m ready. You’re not going to break me.”  
He slowly pulled his fingers out and felt her grasp around them as they left. Once more, Iris reached over to her bedside table and opened the draw, this time to pull out a bottle of lube. She squeezed a blob into her hand and then set it aside again.

She brought their foreheads together, their noses barely touching, their breaths mingling together so easily. She brought her hand down to his, which now rested around his length through the darkness, their eyes met. Starting at the base she slowly drew her hand up, covering his length with lube, their eye contact remained unbroken. Barry could see the ever-present anger in her eyes, currently softened by lust and longing and Iris could see all of Barry’s pain, and all of his strength and all of the want he had in this very moment from the patient way she was driving him crazy. If they had actually exchanged words at this point, they would have both agreed that the realisations and the moment all together seemed too intimate for two people who met not quite two hours ago, under completely unconventional circumstances. 

Iris took a breath and together they moved their hands and Iris shuffled into alignment over Barry’s lap, taking long, deep breaths as she slowly lowered herself. She leaned back slightly, correcting the angle, putting her hands on Barry’s shoulders as a leverage point so she could pull herself down with slow shudders as she felt herself open and wrap around Barry’s length. She closed her eyes and let gravity do the rest of the work as she pulled herself upright and pressed a small kiss on Barry’s lips. When Barry finally settled, mostly inside of her, she let out a deep breath, bowing her head down.  
“Are you okay?” Barry asked.  
“Yeah.” Iris breathed, “Just give me a minute.”  
Barry pressed a kiss to her forehead; solely gentle, solely for her comfort, solely tender. It almost tempted a tear out of her eye and a shaky breath from her mouth.  
“You sure you’re okay?” Concern swam in the oceans of his eyes as if he was worried that he was hurting her. She felt a blip in her heartbeat.  
She lifted her head, rubbing away the tender notion of care, a smile equal parts beaming and mischievous, breaking through her face, “Absolutely.” She moved her hips forward and watched as Barry’s eyes closed. She placed her arms around his neck and drew herself up.  
And then back down. Slowly.

Up.

Slowly.

Down.

Slowly.

Up.

Slowly.

“Iris…” Barry moaned out.

She wasn’t sure if she had the will power she had to keep this up much longer. Especially when he brushed against that one spot inside her. Earlier she’d said she wanted to savour it, now it was just tortuous. She tried to pick up the pace, but there was a certain strain on her legs from being on top and she couldn’t angle the way her body wanted her to. One of Barry’s hands came up to her breasts and again she let out a low gasp.“My god,” she moaned, leaning herself back, giving him more access to her chest. He took the opportunity to lie her down and get on top. As they readjusted Iris opened her legs even wider as if she could somehow let more of him in.  
Barry was in no mood for the slowly, slowly that Iris had instilled, right now she wasn’t sure she was either. Once they were situated he drew all the way out and then back in all the way to the hilt. Iris gasped, pleasure arching her back off the bed. She moaned his name. He pulled out again, and then pushed back in quicker, feeling all of her muscles contract around him. He hoped it felt as good for her as it did for him. Barry continued his rhythm and angle time and time again until all sorts of curses were flowing out of her mouth. His thrusts kept coming even as her toes curled and she squirmed eagerly chasing her release, thrusting her hips messily against his _aching_ for more. Barry was so close to seeing stars. He could feel every millimeter of Iris clenching around him and it was some sort of sweet perfection. It had never felt this good before.  
Rhythms sped up and slowed down as they chased their highs and ran from exhaustion, exhales turned into moans, their body’s ran slick with sweat, and the room filled with the smell of arousal and the slap of wet skin on skin. Iris clawed at the sheets as her toes curled.  
“Barry,” she whined quietly, desperately, “You need to make me come now.” It was a demand and a prayer and a wish. She didn’t want this to end, but she _needed_ her end.  
He took a full breath and compiled, his head came down to her breast and he willed himself faster and harder, his fear of hurting her way in the past. His teeth grazed over her nipple and she messily ran a hand down his back. All that was left was incoherent whispers of each other's names in between short breaths.  
Barry felt Iris’ whole body clench up and a long, breathy, obscene moan claw its way out of her throat. That was all that it took for the heat in Barry’s belly to finally break through and give him what he was searching for. A noise from deep within him broke through his lips as waves of pleasure washed over them both. Firework causing, artillery fire sounding elation. If their orgasms were noise, they would surely have had a whole new kind of shell-shock from it.  
When their shuddering bodies slowly came down from their highs, Barry rolled out and took the condom off, tossing it in the bin next to the bed. He then rolled back over to Iris shuffling into the pillows and letting her nuzzle her head into his neck, and roll into his chest. All their blissed out forms wanted to do was breathe. Pull air back into their lungs and revive their exhausted bodies. They lay there for a minute, letting themselves just be in the moment, slowly recovering. Then Iris sat up and slowly stood up.  
“I’ll be back,” she assured the worry in his eyes, “I’m just going to the bathroom.”  
The tiny echo of concern left his eyes and he relaxed back into the pillows.  
Iris returned a few minutes later wearing a clean shirt and underwear, holding a glass of water out to Barry and another in her hand.  
“Thirsty?”  
He nodded and sat up to accept it, “thanks.”  
Iris finished off her glass and sat it on the floor, before climbing back onto her bed, noticing that Barry must have put his boxers back on while she was in the bathroom.  
“Do you want a shirt? I might have something big enough,” Iris offered laying back down.  
“I’m good. Thanks.”  
Iris let out a yawn, “Okay.” She rolled onto her side and snuggled into Barry’s chest, an action that he would not have expected from the woman he met in the precinct, but one that didn’t seem too out of character for the woman laying in his arms. He reached down slowly to put his finished glass on the floor without disturbing Iris. He let his eyes shut and laid back, more relaxed and at peace now than he had been in years. He had the files on his Dad and he ended up in bed with a woman that was maybe just right for him and all not what he had been expecting at the same time and he was peaceful. It was that thought as he was dozing off that prompted the question _should I tell Felicity that everything’s fine?_ But by the time his brain had fully produced the sentence he had succumbed to his body’s pure exhaustion.  
He would wake up the next morning and find a series of texts on his burner phone from Felicity. Several worried, “where are you’s” and “are you okays” and one final “Say hi to little miss flirty” and “USE PROTECTION”. And he’d laugh and roll back over to Iris who would have been awakened by his quiet chuckles at Felicity’s antics. And what would have been the end of his months of planning, would also be the beginning of something else, something new, something better. 

END


End file.
